


final frontier

by hazy_daisy



Category: Among Us (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, I am still in denial, Murder Mystery, Nonbinary Character, Other, Technically?, The Skeld (Among Us), among us sonas, fkgjdhfskgdhsfjkh, i gave Some of em genders just for the sake of diversity in pronouns fkjghdf, no editing we die like we all do when nobody comes to help me with the fucking reactor, technically it's red/purple but i don't want to tag that, you can tell which ones are my friend and me cause they're the only ones with names xoxo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:27:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26675878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hazy_daisy/pseuds/hazy_daisy
Summary: Black, on her first space mission, is far from home. And far from help.The reports of impostors on other ships have only become more frequent lately; and though she hopes against hope that it won't happen to her, not on this ship, there's a nagging feeling at the back of her mind that things are about to go horribly wrong.
Comments: 15
Kudos: 33





	final frontier

**Author's Note:**

  * For [EUPHOREICS](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EUPHOREICS/gifts).



> literally nobody fucking talk to me about how i wrote among us fanfic. this was supposed to be a shitpost it wasn't /supposed/ to turn into 5000 words i'm not supposed to be here—
> 
> i mean it's not Bad though. here you go mars dkjfghdsk

Well, there was a good part and a bad part.

The good part: Black was finally going on her first mission, finally going to space, after all these years of dreaming and hoping and training. The bad part: the threat of the _imposters_ , first seen about a year before, hadn’t subsided. Not in the least. If anything, it’d only gotten worse.

“Push them out of the airlock,” the training guide advised. “Two crew members should be sufficient to overpower the strength of an impostor, while working together.”

It sounded barbaric. Black had heard the stories, though, and she wasn’t sure there was a better option. 

Black wasn’t sure which of the higher-ups had decided to implement the colored suits, but at this point, half of astronaut culture was based around it, not the least of which were their names. She’d heard from someone that the colors were a safeguard against the rising threat of impostors; easy to recognize people in a specific suit color. Easy to keep track of who died. Easy to keep track of who killed them.

Everyone had actual names, of course, but colors were easier. You could ask someone to tell you their real name, but… well, people knew the risks. Some of them didn’t want to get attached.

“You can call me White,” said the woman in the white suit, on their first day on the ship. The Skeld, it was called. Black thought it was kind of a weird name. 

If it hadn’t been obvious that White was a veteran from her cynicism alone, Black would’ve been able to tell from her voice, crackly though it was through the speaker on her suit. “Names didn’t save anyone before us, and they won’t save us, either, if an impostor gets in,” she’d said, when Lime Green had tried to introduce themself. “Better to save yourself the heartbreak now. Keep your distance.”

Some of them had nicknames on little name tags, stuck to their suits, but Black wasn’t personally a fan of that. Some of them were downright ridiculous; the crew member who went by Texas Red sure didn’t sound like they were from Texas, and Rat Boy wasn’t a rat. Presumably. 

Either way, Black wasn’t going to go around saying ‘Rat Boy’ every time she wanted to talk to her coworker, so Texas Red and Rat Boy stayed Red and Purple, in her eyes.

The mission was just getting started. Black wasn’t sure what the best thing to do was. She could try and get close to the other crew members, sure, but that would make her easy to manipulate if she ended up trusting any of them. On the other hand, keeping her distance might come back to bite her, if she didn’t know who she could trust or not. 

And all of it was just in the event that there _was_ an imposter on the ship. 

“Can’t be too careful,” Pink said, offhand, when Black ate lunch with him. “It’s your first mission, right? Just… watch out for yourself.” He patted her shoulder as he stood up, taking his tray with him. “I’ll try and keep an eye out for you. If all else fails, stick with a group, hm?” 

* * *

A couple of days passed, and Black learned a few more things about her crew. 

Pink liked to read; they had a few conversations about it over meals, but Dark Green (or, really, just Green, since light green had been dubbed Lime) had an actual English degree and Pink seemed more inclined to talk to her. Green was in charge of comms. Pink was in charge of monitoring oxygen. 

Lime was the youngest crewmember on board, besides Black herself. Black was relieved to find that there was someone younger than her, and that Lime made good company. She and Lime were both general engineers, for the moment; they spent most of the first couple of days together, helping each other out with the tasks they were given. Some of the wiring on the ship was finicky, but Black figured they’d get it down eventually.

Yellow was a doctor; they seemed a bit snippy, at first, but Black supposed that they were all on edge. At least a little bit. If nothing else, Yellow had said that people were free to come to them in medbay for a check-up (though that came with the caveat that nobody wake them up in the middle of the night unless something life-threatening had happened).

Blue, in charge of food and inventory, had a couple of kids back home. He didn’t offer their names. Black didn’t ask. 

Black didn’t hear much about Cyan, except that they were a nuclear physicist, the one in charge of the reactor. They seemed sort of sleepy, all the time. She never got a chance to have a real conversation with them.

Lastly, more than any of the rest of the crew, Red and Purple were close. She rarely saw them apart; when she went to introduce herself, they were eating dinner together, side by side. 

“I’m Texas Red, and that’s Rat Boy,” Red said, gesturing to their (friend? Partner? Black wasn’t sure). “Nice to meet you, Black. No nickname?”

“Nah. I’m not really the type,” Black said, trying to push down the uncanny feeling that she was third-wheeling, even with everyone in the cafeteria together. 

Purple shrugged. “That’s fair. You gonna eat that, Red?” With the clunky nature of the suit, it was hard to tell exactly what Purple was pointing at, but Red pushed their tray over, regardless. 

Black wondered if Purple was using a shortening of ‘Texas Red’ or just using the colors, like everyone else. 

“So, I heard it’s your first voyage,” Red said, attention back on Black. “What are you in charge of?”

“Lime and I are both engineers.”

“Oh, fun! Maybe we’ll spend some time together, then. I’m here to keep the engines up and running, and I’m sure I’ll need an extra hand now and then.”

Red looked over at Purple, who fished what looked like a strawberry off of Red’s tray before speaking. “I’m on nav. I take over comms, too, sometimes, but we’ve got a specialist this time around.” He popped the strawberry in his mouth and shrugged, speaking around the food. “Makes my job easier.”

Red coughed something that sounded like _lazy_. Purple tried to push them off the bench.

* * *

“What do you think?” she asked White, later that day. Black had her doubts, and White seemed like the person to ask. If just for her breadth of experience. “About Red and Purple being so close, I mean. Is it… suspicious?”

There was a pause before White spoke, where her hands stilled at the wires she’d been fiddling with. Black had come over to weapons to help, since she _was_ an engineer and it was technically her job, but White already had the wall panel open by the time she got there. (“Weapons is my jurisdiction,” she’d said, not even bothering to turn toward Black. “I can take care of some petty wiring. It’s a good break from blasting asteroids, anyway.”)

“Not necessarily,” came the answer, finally. “I think you’re right to be wary, though. It’d be convenient, for a pair of impostors to come on board like that. Easy to offer alibis. Easy to kill.”

Black made a pained noise, and slumped back against the wall. _Fuck_.

“Doesn’t mean they are, though,” White said, going back to her wiring. “People make friends in the academy. I’ve met crewmembers who were close with someone else, like that.”

“Maybe it’s a survival tactic,” Black mused. “Stay close so they can defend one another.”

White’s visor was down, but the way her head tilted made Black think that she was on the receiving end of a contemplative look. “I’ll tell you this much,” she said, after a moment. “It won’t help them, if there’s an impostor. I had a friend, on my first mission. We were like this.” White held up a hand with two fingers twisted around each other (or her best attempt, with the thick material of the suit). “Didn’t matter. We stuck together, we stuck up for each other, and it didn’t make a difference. The lights went out, and so did oxygen; I lost sight of her for just a second when I was running to O2, and the next time I saw her, she was dead.”

A chill went down Black’s spine. 

“If you want my advice?” White continued. “Don’t get attached. It’ll hurt you if they’re the impostor. It’ll hurt you if they’re dead. Better to keep your distance. That’s the best survival tactic there is.”

* * *

A day passed; then two, then three. Black wanted to relax, to fall into the rhythm of her job, but she couldn’t. The possibility of an imposter prodded at the back of her brain, a constant reminder that she could be unsafe, that someone could die.

Pink offered her his copy of 1984, if she got bored. Yellow advised her to drink more water for her skin, but told her that acne flare ups were just as common in space as on earth. Lime talked about missing her cat. The days passed.

Black was just thinking that maybe things would turn out alright, on the last day of the first week, when the lights went out. She could practically feel her heart drop.

They gathered in the cafeteria, under the dim lights of the backup generators. The engines just _stopped_ , said Red, but they’d try to get them back up and running. Lime piped up with a report from electric; the lights would be fine, for now, but there was something off about the system. The wires were all on the fritz. 

“Damn it,” White hissed. “Alright, helmets on, everybody. O2 might go out any time. Safer if you’ve got the suit as backup.”

The only sound for a moment was the clicking of helmets and visors.

“Is it—” Pink started, but cut off. His voice sounded odd, coming through the speaker in his helmet. He didn’t need to finish his sentence. The rest of the crew knew what he meant.

“I hope not,” White said. “For all our sakes.”

Lime moved a little closer to Black. Red slipped their gloved hand into Purple’s.

“Be careful, all of you,” Yellow said. They sounded worried; more emotional than Black had ever heard them before. 

“For now, our focus should be on repairing the ship.” There was an innate authority to White’s voice. Not undeserved, either, considering what she’d been through before. “Figuring out what’s wrong. We can move on from there.”

* * *

The rest of the day cycle passed uneventfully. Black spent most of it with Lime, nervous though she was to be alone with someone else. They examined the lighting board, the breakers, the wires; none of it seemed out of place, but still, the lights refused to come back on. Something _had_ to be wrong, but if it was a problem in electrical, Black and Lime had yet to find it.   
  
“Maybe Red found something in the engines,” Lime finally suggested, and they headed out to find the engineer in question. 

They didn’t pass anybody in the lower engine, but Black caught a glimpse of Cyan in the reactor, looking more alert than usual. Maybe even to the point of panic. _Fuck_. Black hadn’t thought about it, but it made sense; with things on the fritz, who could say whether the reactor would stay stable? That was a nightmare all on its own, the reactor overloading while they were without power and days from the nearest docking station. 

Red wasn’t alone, when Lime and Black found them in the upper engine. Purple raised a hand in greeting from where they leaned against the wall. 

“Any luck with the engines?” Black asked, even though a cursory glance around at the dark engine room told her all she needed to know. 

“Nope,” Red answered, tapping an electrical box as if trying to jolt it back into function. “You’d‘ve heard it by now, if I did.”

“Do you want any help?” Lime piped up. 

“I’m alright. Thanks, though,” Red said, slamming their fist against the box one last time and sighing when it didn’t produce any results. “Engines are finicky, and lights are more important, anyway. Even if we can’t go anywhere, it’ll be nicer to sit around and go crazy with the lights on.”

“Cheery.” The sarcasm in Purple’s voice was almost tangible.

Silence fell for a moment as Red opened a panel on the box to get at the wiring inside. Lime was the first to speak up again. “How’s nav?”

Purple, against the wall, shrugged. “Can’t navigate without engines. I’m gonna hang around with Red until they get the fuckers going, then I’ll get us out of here.”

“If they get them going,” Black muttered, under her breath.

“Oh, don’t stress.” Black could practically hear the smile in Red’s voice, even through the choppy quality of the speaker. “I’m sure it’s just a matter of time.”

* * *

Try as she might, Black couldn’t get the idea of an imposter onboard out of her head. When the night cycle came around, sleep seemed hopeless.

As little as she wanted to be out on her own, in the dark, she figured it was better than sitting scared, in her bunk, doing nothing. At the very least, she could get a snack and take another look at electrical, see if she could figure out what had gone wrong. If she was productive now, she could justify her inevitable crash later. 

Her flashlight got her through the corridors, and into the cafeteria. She swept the light over the tables nervously; the feeling that someone was _hiding_ , _watching_ her, crept into her brain and raised the hairs at the back of her neck. The darkness was too good of a hiding place. There could be anyone in the shadows of the tables, and—

A flash of bright pink.

Without thinking, Black _screamed_ and dropped her flashlight, before scrambling frantically to pick it back up again. Her only thoughts were _I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die_ , but—when she got her light back, nothing had moved. Pink was motionionless behind one of the tables.

“Pink?” she called, trying to keep the shake out of her voice. “Is that you? What are you doing?”

The sound of footsteps clanging against the metal floor of the ship sounded behind her, and Black spun around with her heart in her throat before she saw who it was; White, with Lime close behind her. 

“What’s wrong?” White demanded, stepping past her to shine her own flashlight into the cafeteria.

Black’s words caught in her throat for a moment before she could speak. “I—I couldn’t sleep, so I came to get something to eat, and Pink—”

She didn’t know how to finish that sentence. Caught her off-guard? Was hiding in the cafeteria? Was there, but hadn’t responded when she called to him?

She settled for pointing him out, instead.

White, ever determined, went to Pink. Lime made a beeline for Black’s side. “Are you alright?” they asked. Black could only nod.

There wouldn’t have been time to answer, anyway, before White was yelling, “Fuck, get Yellow!”

* * *

The atmosphere in the cafeteria was stifling. The air felt heavy with grief and panic. Pink hadn’t been hiding—it was his body, that Black had seen on the floor. She’d pulled Yellow out of bed as quickly as she could, but by the time they got back to the cafeteria, what had been done was done. The stab wounds in Pink’s back were deep. He’d bled out before Black had even found them; he was long gone by the time the rest of the crew was awake and gathered around his body.

Lime hadn’t spoken since they’d found the body. Black was pretty sure they were ready to snap. The same with Cyan.

“So,” Purple spoke up, breaking the tense silence. There was a finality to his voice. Black didn’t quite have the words to describe it, but his tone… nothing in it resembled any kind of hope. “There’s an impostor.”

Red, at his side, shifted closer.

“We’re gonna die,” Lime said, the panic clear in their voice. “Oh my god, we’re gonna die—”

“Calm down,” White snapped. “Getting into hysterics will only help whoever it is that’s doing this. What we need to do is—”

“Hold on,” Blue interrupted. “Has anyone seen Green?”

Black felt her heart sink. 

* * *

They found Green in storage. She’d been impaled on something; Yellow couldn’t tell anything from it except that it matched wounds from other impostor cases. She was already dead. Like Pink. 

There was no question of it, now. There was an impostor onboard.

Black didn’t think she’d known those people well enough for grief. What she felt at that moment, though, was definitely denial. Or something similar, at least. Denial, mixed with a good dose of horror and the urge to puke. She averted her eyes from the body.

“What do we do?” Red asked, uncharacteristically solemn.

“Put the bodies out into vacuum,” White replied. The glare of the flashlights reflected off of the black of her visor. “And try not to die.”

* * *

They all went back to trying to get the ship fixed. White advised not to be alone with someone else; while staying in a group was advantageous, going off alone with someone could mean death. 

Lime asked if Black wanted to stick together—said that they trusted her, that things would get done faster if they were together. A chill ran down Black’s spine. Suddenly, all she could think is that Lime had been quick to get up, after she’d screamed in the cafeteria; it was possible they’d been awake and roaming the ship already.

Black liked Lime. She did. And they looked genuinely scared, but—who could tell what was acting and what was real?

She turned down their offer, and tried not to think about what Lime’s scared face might look like behind their dark visor. Lime went to work in electrical. Black popped open a wall panel to check the wiring in storage.

This time, she found an obvious problem. Someone had cut some wires. Sabotage. She let out a shaky breath and got to fixing it.

Minutes passed. A message popped up on Black’s tablet, as she worked in the semi-dark. 

_Signal lost. Communications down._

Fuck. She redoubled her focus on the electrical panels.

When the red emergency lights went off, they nearly scared her to death. The flashes of red meant that she had to make her way back to the cafeteria. Something was wrong. 

Lime appeared around the corner from electrical a moment later, as Black tried to regain her composure. “Do you know what happened? Hey, are you alright?”

“Fine, fine,” Black assured them, and they went through the door to the cafeteria together.

Red and Purple were standing by the emergency button when Lime and Black walked through the doors; White came from another hallway, soon after, and Blue after her.

“What’s going on?” White demanded.

“It’s Yellow.” 

Black thought there might be a quaver to Red’s voice. Purple put a hand on their shoulder, and Red covered it with their own gloved hand, before continuing.

“In medbay. We were going back to nav, from the engines, and I saw them on the floor—”

Red cut off, and turned their head away from the group. Black’s head swam with the news of Yellow’s death. Their doctor was gone. What were they supposed to do, with their last hope of survival gone?

White cursed under her breath. The sound was just barely audible through her suit. “Nobody’s seen Cyan, have they?”

“Oh, god,” Lime said, voice faint. 

“It’s just us, now.” Black felt a little dazed. 

There was an impostor in the room. There had to be. It could be any of them; Blue, Red, Purple, Lime. Even White, dependable as she was. Black didn’t want it to be her. Fuck, she didn’t want it to be White, but how could she know for sure?

White and Blue had gone off alone. So had Lime. Black was suddenly very grateful that she’d decided to stay on her own. Red and Purple were the only ones with alibis, the only ones who’d stuck together; the only ones who trusted each other enough to stick together.

“Well. What do we do now?” Purple asked.

“I still haven’t done my scan in medbay yet,” Lime piped up, nervously. “If someone could watch me, confirm I’m human—”

“Sure,” Red offered. “Want me to stick around while you try and get the lights up?”

“Alright,” Lime said, sounding relieved.

“Are you sure that’s safe?” Blue sounded… skeptical. 

“Safer than being alone.” Red looked over at Purple, and then back at the group. “If an imposter gets one of us, the other one can report it—and if one of us dies, we know who the imposter is, don’t we?”

“They have a point,” White said, leaned over the cafeteria table as if to brace herself. “Alright. Be careful, everyone.”

As they walked away, Red made a motion like blowing a kiss to Purple. It was a little clumsy with the whole suit-and-visor situation. “See you later, babe. Don’t die.”

Purple raised their hand to catch the kiss and headed off toward navigation, throwing a ‘ _same to you’_ over their shoulder. 

* * *

With no sign of Cyan, there was no telling what would happen with the reactor. Black made her way to the reactor, just to check. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to help if there was any catastrophe, but she had basic training. She could settle her own nerves and see if things were going wrong.

She held her breath as she swung her flashlight beam around the dark reactor room. No bodies. No people. 

The reactor seemed stable, so Black decided to head back to the cafeteria, where she could see people coming, at the very least.

The path back to the caf took her by medbay, where Red and Lime would be. She paused outside the door. She felt strange and uncomfortable, sneaking around in the semi-darkness like this, intending to eavesdrop, but—fuck, what if it _was_ Red? What if Lime’s body was lying there, on the scanner? Now was Black’s chance to peep inside, before they’d been seen; they still had the chance to run to the cafeteria and call an emergency meeting, if they saw a body. It was necessary. It had to be done.

Slowly, painstakingly, she peered around the door, and—

“I’m scared,” Lime said, softly, standing in front of the screen. Black glanced up at the results of their scan. Human. No doubt.

“Yeah.” Red, sitting on the edge of the scanner with their hands clasped in front of them, sounded more serious than Black had ever heard them. “I think we all are.”

“We’re gonna die, aren’t we?”

Red stood. “Chin up. All we can do, for now, is try to survive.” They reached over to pat Lime’s arm. “I’ll do my best to protect you, though. I promise.”

Black did her best to look inconspicuous as she walked past the door, and tried to ignore the feeling that she’d seen something private. Lime wasn’t the impostor. She knew that much. Lime was safe.

Thank god. She went to go sit in the cafeteria.

* * *

Lime was the next person she saw, with Red hot on their heels; for one horrific moment, Black thought that Lime was being chased, that they were both about to die, before Red yelled, “Hit the emergency button!”

Black did as told. It didn’t take long for White and Purple to appear; the first obviously coming from weapons, the latter from the hallway that led to admin and storage.

“We went to check the security cameras, and we found Blue, dead,” Lime recounted, sounding ready to faint.

White cursed under her breath again. When she looked up at the remaining four crewmembers, her voice was more commanding than Black had ever heard it before.

“Lime. You were with Red the whole time?” she asked, and Lime nodded almost frantically. 

“They never left my sight,” Red assured. “Their scan said they were human.”

White turned to Black and Purple, then, standing next to each other by chance. “That only leaves you two, then.”

“What?” Black couldn’t help the hysterical lilt to her voice. “No, I—”

“I haven’t seen either of you this entire time people have been dying,” White cut her off. “It’s suspicious, is what it is—” 

“What’s suspicious is that you’re still alive, White,” Purple said, steadily. All heads turned to him. “Are you really telling me that you survived all those imposter attacks by _chance_? There’s a common theme there, White—you were on all of those ships. And you survived.”

“Why wouldn’t she kill the rest, though?” Lime spoke up, shakily. 

Red sounded like they’d had an epiphany. “Because it’d be the perfect cover story. Wouldn’t it.”

“What do you mean?” White snapped.

“Think about it!” Red slammed a hand onto the table. “A senior officer. A higher-up. Someone trusted. How _easy_ would it be for you to infiltrate a ship? For you to kill everybody, shove some bodies out of the airlock, and go home alone? You could say that you overpowered the last impostor. That you were the only one who survived.”

“And they’d have no reason not to believe you,” Lime continued, their voice small. They sounded horrified.

Suddenly, everything clicked into place. Black couldn’t help the ragged gasp that escaped her. It felt like the breath had been knocked out of her lungs.

“Exactly.” Purple’s closed visor offered nothing but a reflection of the others.

“What are you _talking_ about?” White yelled, stepping forward toward the table.

Lime took an instinctive step back; Red reached over to put a hand on their shoulder, and Lime shrunk closer to them.

“Rat Boy’s been with me the whole time, except when I went off with Lime,” Red started. “Lime is human. Rat Boy didn’t do it. That leaves Black—”

Lime piped up again. “I don’t think it’s Black. I really don’t. I’ve seen her a few times, and they’ve always been working. And—and I trust her.”

Black wanted more than anything to hug Lime in that moment.

“And you, White,” Red finished. 

“Since we’ve eliminated the other choice,” Purple continued, voice crackly through the speaker on their suit, “That only leaves one logical choice.”

“You mother _fuckers_ ,” White yelled, slamming a fist onto the tabletop. “It’s Black! It’s obviously Black! You can’t—”

Red pushed Lime behind them. “She’s getting violent. Get back, you two. We’ll handle this.”

Black gave in to her instincts and clung to Lime as Red and Purple each seized one of White’s arms. She tried not to cry, not to vomit—it had to be done. It had to be done. White was the impostor. It felt so obvious, now.

Red and Purple manhandled White into the airlock, and then she was gone. And it was over.

* * *

Black cried on Lime’s shoulder for a long time, after White was ejected. Lime returned the favor. Red and Purple sat in the cafeteria with them, holding hands, keeping a silent vigil; it was comforting, to be watched over, but Black didn’t know if she’d ever be able to feel safe again. Certainly not on this ship.

“There’s no more impostors,” Purple said, after a while, once Black and Lime had calmed down a bit. “We should be able to fix the ship now. We can get home.”

Indeed, when Lime and Black made the trip to electrical once again, they were able to get the lights up. The rumble of the engines came to life under their feet a moment later. 

They still had enough people to keep the ship functional; Purple to navigate, Red to keep the engines running, Lime and Black to do maintenance. Red and Purple took charge, as senior officers. Black and Lime were only too happy to let them do so. Comms were still down, but Purple promised that everything in nav was functioning fine, and that they’d be to the nearest station as soon as possible.

Something didn’t ring true, though. Something didn’t feel right. Lime went to get food, leaving Black on her own for the moment in the cafeteria. Something occurred to her.

In a moment of impulsivity, she ran toward navigation, where Red and Purple had been. Where they would have to be. 

Red turned to wave to her with a smile; they’d abandoned their helmet, with oxygen stability assured again. “Hey, Black. Need something?”

Frankly, after seeing how gently they’d treated Lime, Black trusted Red. Purple, on the other hand—the more she thought about it, the more cold-blooded their accusation of White seemed. She barely spared Red a glance. When she spoke, it was directly to Purple.

“It’s you, isn’t it.” Her voice shook.

“What?” Red’s light, easy tone echoed off the metal walls. They sounded almost amused.

“You came from storage,” Black continued. “The body—Blue—was in security. You’re in charge of navigation. That’s where you went at first, wasn’t it? Why would you go all the way around to storage? Nobody was there.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Purple said, cooly, turning from the nav dashboard to face her.

“I think it’s convenient,” she said, trying to force the shake out of her voice. She’d be fine. Red was here. They would help her. They would keep her safe, like they promised to keep Lime safe. “A convenient way to get to the cafeteria, if you had killed Blue in security and didn’t want to be seen by the people in medbay.”

“You think Rat Boy’s an impostor?” This time, a clear peal of laughter sounded from Red. “Come on, Black. He’s been with me this whole time! If he was the impostor, wouldn’t he have killed me by now?”

“Not—” Synapses fired in Black’s brain, and suddenly, something _connected_ . “Not if you were his alibi.” Black spun for a moment to face Red, instead. _Fuck. Fuck._

“If I were his alibi, why would I have reported Cyan’s body in comms?” Red’s tone was still jovial. They grinned, widely, as if it were a joke; as if Black were crazy for suggesting it.

_Oh, no._ Black couldn’t help the shake to her voice. “We never found Cyan’s body.”

“Huh?” Red looked over at Purple, smile faltering. “Oh, right, I meant—my memory’s never been the best, you know, I mean—”

“It was Yellow in medbay, dumbass.” Purple’s sardonic tone sounded chilling, echoing off the walls.

“It’s both of you. Isn’t it.” Black started to back away. She had to get away; Lime would come looking for her, soon, and she had to tell them. There had to be some way for the two of them to get out alive. There had to be. “It’s been both of you this whole time.”

Red looked over at Purple, again, and sighed. “Hey, I tried,” they said. “I’m a terrible liar under pressure. It’s a shame, though—” They pulled a knife out of the pocket of the suit, and Black’s breath went ragged at the sight of the dried blood coating the blade. “We got control of the ship. We could have left you two alive. Lime was actually kind of sweet.”

“Not the knife,” Purple said, tone distasteful. “That’ll take too long.”

Things flashed through Black’s senses—apprehension, fear, a glimpse of some awful _maw_ , of teeth and a giant mouth and then a sharp, stabbing pain, through her torso. Through her heart. Then through her neck.

Suddenly, the only thing in her vision was the metal ceiling. Her shocked and pain-addled brain could only think that it looked remarkably similar to the floor.

“You’re an idiot, Red,” she heard Purple say, and the sound of a vent opening echoed around the room and the fading corners of her consciousness.

“You love me, though.” Red’s voice turned tinny and echoey, punctuated by the sound of two pairs of boots hitting the metal of a vent.

“Maybe I do,” Black heard Purple say, before it all went dark.

**Author's Note:**

> shout out to the among us tag for having like. one decent fic amongst all the porn skghfdkjshfkj


End file.
